Mort

shot to his feet with a strangled cry, watched blue fireworks explode in front of his eyes, and collapsed again. Ysabell caught him under the shoulders and hauled him back on his feet.
    “Let’s go down to the river,” she said. “I think we could all do with a drink.”
    “What happened to me?”
    She shrugged as best she could while supporting his weight.
    “Someone used the Rite of AshkEnte. Father hates it, he says they always summon him at inconvenient moments. The part of you that was Death went and you stayed behind. I think. At least you’ve got your own voice back.”
    “What time is it?”
    “What time did you say the priests close up the pyramid?”
    Mort squinted through streaming eyes back towards the tomb of the king. Sure enough, torchlit fingers were working on the door. Soon, according to the legend, the guardians would come to life and begin their endless patrol.
    He knew they would. He remembered the knowledge. He remembered his mind feeling as cold as ice and limitless as the night sky. He remembered being summoned into reluctant existence at the moment the first creature lived, in the certain knowledge that he would outlive life until the last being in the universe passed to its reward, when it would then be his job, figuratively speaking, to put the chairs on the tables and turn all the lights off.
    He remembered the loneliness.
    “Don’t leave me,” he said urgently.
    “I’m here,” she said. “For as long as you need me.”
    “It’s midnight,” he said dully, sinking down by the Tsort and lowering his aching head to the water. Beside him there was a noise like a bath emptying as Binky also took a drink.
    “Does that mean we’re too late?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”
    “There isn’t.”
    “At least you kept your promise to Albert.”
    “Yes,” said Mort, bitterly. “At least I did that.”
    Nearly all the way from one side of the Disc to the other….
    There should be a word for the microscopic spark of hope that you dare not entertain in case the mere act of acknowledging it will cause it to vanish, like trying to look at a photon. You can only sidle up to it, looking past it, walking past it, waiting for it to get big enough to face the world.
    He raised his dripping head and looked towards the sunset horizon, trying to remember the big model of the Disc in Death’s study without actually letting the universe know what he was entertaining.
    At times like this it can seem that eventuality is so finely balanced that merely thinking too loud can spoil everything.
    He oriented himself by the thin streamers of Hublight dancing against the stars, and made an inspired guess that Sto Lat was…over there….
    “Midnight,” he said aloud.
    “Gone midnight now,” said Ysabell.
    Mort stood up, trying not to let the delight radiate out from him like a beacon, and grabbed Binky’s harness.
    “Come on,” he said. “We haven’t got much time.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    Mort reached down to swing her up behind him. It was a nice idea, but merely meant that he nearly pulled himself out of the saddle. She pushed him back gently and climbed up by herself. Binky skittered sideways, sensing Mort’s feverish excitement, and snorted and pawed at the sand.
    “I said, what are you talking about?”
    Mort turned the horse to face the distant glow of the sunset.
    “The speed of night,” he said.

Cutwell poked his head over the palace battlements and groaned. The interface was only a street away, clearly visible in the octarine, and he didn’t have to imagine the sizzling. He could hear it—a nasty, saw-toothed buzz as random particles of possibility hit the interface and gave up their energy as noise. As it ground its way up the street the pearly wall swallowed the bunting, the torches and the waiting crowds, leaving only dark streets. Somewhere out there, Cutwell thought, I’m fast asleep in my bed and none of this has happened. Lucky me.
    He ducked down, skidded down the ladder to the cobbles and legged it back to the main hall with the skirts of his robe flapping around his ankles. He slipped in through the small postern in the great door and ordered the guards to lock it, then grabbed his skirts again and pounded along a side passage so that the guests wouldn’t notice him.
    The hall was lit with thousands of candles and crowded with Sto Plain dignitaries, nearly all of them slightly unsure why they were there.